ralph wrote:Are there any books that take a systematic look at biblical hebrew, basing themselves on just letters, and not masoretic markings?

Ralph, have you looked at Jouon-Muraoka, section 41 (available in your Bibleworks)? It does not provide the systematic non-Masoretic discussion you're hoping to find but may be of interest. It provides one of the longer discussions I've been able to come across.

Did Biblical Hebrew have a term for “to hear”? The verb שמע refers to active listening. Knowing is acquired and held, active. If knowing were stative, how could it have an imperative, as it is used in at least seven verses? Even sleeping is an act, not something imposed upon a person with him being completely passive.

Other than the verb “to be”, does any language have stative verbs? I don’t think that “to be” followed by an adjective together make a stative verb. In Hebrew, one of the languages where the use of the verb “to be” in a sentence was optional, how does that change an adjective into a verb?

ralph wrote:Are there any books that take a systematic look at biblical hebrew, basing themselves on just letters, and not masoretic markings?

We can put this question a different way—is there anyone in the past 1400 years, who has read Tanakh through, cover to cover, without using the Masoretic points?

Those who have read even just short passages in class have noted that the unpointed text often indicates different readings than the pointed text, but just as very few modern people have read Tanakh through cover to cover, so even fewer modern people have done so without the Masoretic points.

The above two paragraphs is just a fancy way of saying “I don’t know of any systematic study of Biblical Hebrew without the Masoretic points, and I don’t expect anyone to have done so.”

I'll start here, because this seems to be the root of your misunderstanding, although I suspect you have an agenda, which is you just don't want to entertain the notion of stative verbs in BH.

Here are a just a few statives from off the top of my head:He burned with jealousy. "burn" here is stativeI got anxious. "got" is stative here.She melted with fear. "melted" is stative here.Her heart sank. "sank" is stative here."But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls." Heb 10:39. "Shrink back" is stative here.When I read your reply, my head exploded. "exploded" here is stative.

Swahili:Nimefika, I have arrived - stative. In Swahili, a stative verb is not only stative in meaning, it also has a stative suffix. Statives are unambiguous in Swahili, and I suspect in most Bantu languages as well.

French:je me suis fâché, I got angry. "se fâcher" is a stative verb. Side note: French likes to use reflexive (so-called pronominal verbs) verbs to express a state.

I don’t think that “to be” followed by an adjective together make a stative verb

Correct, the whole phrase is stative. When translating a stative into English it is easier to use a be+adjective phrase because in English this is the easiest and most common way to express a state. BH on the other hand almost never uses an adjective that way.

In Hebrew, one of the languages where the use of the verb “to be” in a sentence was optional, how does that change an adjective into a verb?

A verb can be nominalized. A noun can be verbalized. So why can't an adjective be verbalized? It's easy to see that qaton in hebrew was an adjective primarily before its usage as a verb. Largely because, its adjectival meaning is primarily concrete (small), but its verbal usage is abstract.

Here are some examples:קָטֹ֜נְתִּי מִכֹּ֤ל הַחֲסָדִים֙ וּמִכָּל־ הָ֣אֱמֶ֔ת אֲשֶׁ֥ר עָשִׂ֖יתָ אֶת־ עַבְדֶּ֑ךָ — Gen 32:10. About as stative as a verb CAN be.

While we're in Gen 32, I see three other statives:1. וַיִּירָ֧א יַעֲקֹ֛ב מְאֹ֖ד וַיֵּ֣צֶר לֹ֑ו — v7. Both verbs are stative here. Lit. he was afraid and it was distressing to him.2. וַתַּעֲבֹ֥ר הַמִּנְחָ֖ה עַל־ פָּנָ֑יו — v21. the present is not performing an action

I'll start here, because this seems to be the root of your misunderstanding, although I suspect you have an agenda, which is you just don't want to entertain the notion of stative verbs in BH.

Here are a just a few statives from off the top of my head:He burned with jealousy. "burn" here is stativeI got anxious. "got" is stative here.She melted with fear. "melted" is stative here.Her heart sank. "sank" is stative here."But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls." Heb 10:39. "Shrink back" is stative here.When I read your reply, my head exploded. "exploded" here is stative.

If you had asked me concerning any of the above sentences outside of this discussion, I’d have stated that all the verbs are active. So are you saying that “stative” is a type of active verb? If so, how do you distinguish it from other active verbs? What are the identifying features of a stative active that make it recognizable as other than a simple active verb?

I don’t have an agenda, it’s just how I understand language usage.

Jemoh66 wrote:

I don’t think that “to be” followed by an adjective together make a stative verb

Correct, the whole phrase is stative. When translating a stative into English it is easier to use a be+adjective phrase because in English this is the easiest and most common way to express a state. BH on the other hand almost never uses an adjective that way.

OK

Jemoh66 wrote:

In Hebrew, one of the languages where the use of the verb “to be” in a sentence was optional, how does that change an adjective into a verb?

A verb can be nominalized. A noun can be verbalized. So why can't an adjective be verbalized? It's easy to see that qaton in hebrew was an adjective primarily before its usage as a verb. Largely because, its adjectival meaning is primarily concrete (small), but its verbal usage is abstract.

You don’t know that about קטן because the Biblical literature is so small.

When a document as small as the Gezat calendar yet can include a word not found in Tanakh, how many other words have been forgotten because they weren’t recorded in Tanakh?

The more I read Tanakh, the more I notice patterns that nobody told me about before.

While we're in Gen 32, I see three other statives:1. וַיִּירָ֧א יַעֲקֹ֛ב מְאֹ֖ד וַיֵּ֣צֶר לֹ֑ו — v7. Both verbs are stative here. Lit. he was afraid and it was distressing to him.2. וַתַּעֲבֹ֥ר הַמִּנְחָ֖ה עַל־ פָּנָ֑יו — v21. the present is not performing an action

On the contrary, the “propitiatory gift” is crossing the Jordan and going on in front of Jacob. That’s active.

I read the first of the papers, glanced at the second. From the description, stative verbs are recognized by their Masoretic points and/or contexts.

There’s no question that the Masoretic points do NOT reflect Biblical Hebrew pronunciation. The Masoretic points DO reflect the pronunciation of Tiberian Hebrew, a language nobody ever spoke natively. Tiberian Hebrew is one of the stepping stones between when Biblical Hebrew ceased being spoken natively before the time of Ezra and Nehemiah (the distinction between “spoken” and “natively spoken” must be kept in mind) and modern Hebrew.

Secondly, many of which he called “stative verbs” are adjectives. When reading the unpointed text, there’s no reason to read those adjectives as verbs.

Thirdly, I glanced at his list of “stative verbs” and saw examples such as זקן to become old and קרב to approach, draw near, meanings which reflect actual Biblical Hebrew use, being given static meanings.

Fourthly, he didn’t take into account that more often than not, the verb “to be” is usually omitted, giving us verbless clauses. The resulting sentences in Biblical Hebrew are “[subject][omitted ‘to be’][adjective]”. So where is the stative verb?

Finally, I’ve mentioned this before, where Piels can be recognized by their form in unpointed texts, they refer to actions that are repeated or continuous, or places where such actions take place. In other words, did the Piel and Pual indicate the imperfective aspect in Biblical Hebrew? How many of the “stative verbs” were really Piels or Puals in Biblical Hebrew?

I read the first of the papers, glanced at the second. From the description, stative verbs are recognized by their Masoretic points and/or contexts.

There’s no question that the Masoretic points do NOT reflect Biblical Hebrew pronunciation. The Masoretic points DO reflect the pronunciation of Tiberian Hebrew, a language nobody ever spoke natively. Tiberian Hebrew is one of the stepping stones between when Biblical Hebrew ceased being spoken natively before the time of Ezra and Nehemiah (the distinction between “spoken” and “natively spoken” must be kept in mind) and modern Hebrew.

Secondly, many of which he called “stative verbs” are adjectives. When reading the unpointed text, there’s no reason to read those adjectives as verbs.

Thirdly, I glanced at his list of “stative verbs” and saw examples such as זקן to become old and קרב to approach, draw near, meanings which reflect actual Biblical Hebrew use, being given static meanings.

Fourthly, he didn’t take into account that more often than not, the verb “to be” is usually omitted, giving us verbless clauses. The resulting sentences in Biblical Hebrew are “[subject][omitted ‘to be’][adjective]”. So where is the stative verb?

Finally, I’ve mentioned this before, where Piels can be recognized by their form in unpointed texts, they refer to actions that are repeated or continuous, or places where such actions take place. In other words, did the Piel and Pual indicate the imperfective aspect in Biblical Hebrew? How many of the “stative verbs” were really Piels or Puals in Biblical Hebrew?

Karl W. Randolph.

This just goes to show how unproductive your approach to BH is. There are severe gaps in your knowledge of basic linguistic concepts. The inability to understand what a stative verb is is one of them. There is no reason to think BH as an Afro-Asiatic language wouldn't display features common to that language group. One of those common features is that stative verbs are not only stative at the semantic level, but also have stative forms, i.e. at the superficial level of pronunciation. Hence in the title of the paper, A Study of Form and Function. One approach yields a treasure trove of linguistic data, along with good papers like this one, while your approach yields "head in the sand I don't know what a stative verb is" and other fruitless conclusions.

Notice two entire phrases can be identical, yet one be dynamic, the other stative.S5 In her early days she played the piano.S6 Last night she played the piano.

But language can be far more subtle than these basic dualities. For example, I could sayS7 Last night she was a piano player!The nuance in this is beautiful from a linguistic point of view. It involves context and also prosody.Last night...she was a piano player.

Sometimes the morphological difference appears in the tense conjugation:They hanged him at high noon. (D)He hung at high noon. (S)

I guess mem waw taw and yud chaf lamed, are always stative 'cos in english one could always replace "he died" with he is/was/became dead. likewise with able.. So stative verbs seem to be a type of passive and with a passive verb, they have a subject and no object..

I guess that one is always stative as such a verb can always be replaced by "is/became [whatever]"

But are there any stative verbs in hebrew that can be used non-statively? And if so then does it have different vowels when used non-statively?

And I guess sometimes they have a corresponding adjective and sometimes not?